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Temple University Center for Research
in Human Development and Education |
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Online Portals in
Education No. 109
by
Johann Sarmiento
Temple University
Given the exponential growth of Internet resources,
effectively locating and using relevant high-quality
Internet resources is a continuous challenge for users. The
search for a solution to this challenge serves as a
motivation for the development of search engines,
directories, and, more recently, portals and exchanges. An
online portal is a specialized web directory that
consolidates and customizes information and resources (e.g.,
services and applications) about a specific topic for a
defined audience. Portals customize content through diverse
strategies including the selection and presentation of
relevant information for specific users, needs or interests,
or through the actual modification of resources to suit
specific needs.
Interest in using online portals for educational purposes
has grown rapidly in recent years. One of the new goals of
the Office of Technology of the U.S. Department of Education
is to transform teaching and learning with digital content
and networked applications (U.S. Department of Education,
2001, 7). Similarly, the 2000 report to the nation from the
National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for
the 21st Century recommends the creation of a dedicated
Internet portal for teachers that will contribute to "an
ever-expanding knowledge base about mathematics and science
teaching" (Executive Summary, 9).
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Currently, there are many free and subscription websites
that can be categorized as educational portals. A current example available to
educators is The Gateway to Educational Materials™(GEM;
www.thegateway.org). GEM, a consortium
effort supported by the U.S. Department of Education and the ERIC Clearinghouse
on Information & Technology at Syracuse University, provides practitioners with
quick and easy access to thousands of educational resources found on various
federal, state, university, nonprofit, and commercial Internet sites. The goal
of GEM is to provide "a gateway" to quality collections of educational resources
and make the process of searching for those resources more efficient and
successful for educators. (See Table 1 for more examples.)
An interesting group
of emerging portals is dedicated to delivering actual instructional and learning
applications directly to learners or teachers. These sites are now being labeled
as "eLearning" portals and offer eLearning objects such as instructional
documents, simulations, and exercises. The purpose of an eLearning portal is to
ensure efficient access to high-quality education and training materials (in
electronic format) that can be tailored to individual learner needs and made
available at anytime in anyplace. Most preK-12 schools look to eLearning portals
and Application Server Providers (ASP) as the new generation of their current
Integrated Learning Systems (ILS). An ASP reduces cost by delivering the
functionality of a software application directly to the user via the Internet
instead of requiring installation of the software on individual machines. The
challenge is to assure an open and effective infrastructure to integrate and
manage high-quality content from different providers (for profit and nonprofit)
and provide a robust and interoperable platform for digital content on preK-12.
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